More Than Colleagues: Does Your Staff Feel Like a Team?

Discover the power of unity on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast with me, Todd Rhodes, as we dissect the findings of our extensive survey and tackle the pressing issue of teamwork—or the lack thereof—within church staffs. Imagine having a church staff where every single person feels like a critical player in your mission, fully engaged and connected. This episode zeroes in on how to make that a reality, addressing the 15% who feel isolated and the 20% who are uncertain about their roles. We're revealing strategies that can transform your church's work environment from a place of solitary tasks to a hub of collaboration and mutual support.

Join us for a candid conversation about fostering a culture of inclusivity and connectivity among church staff members. We share practical steps to help leaders engage those who feel disconnected, encourage synergistic interactions across different departments, and regularly appraise the dynamics of their teams. Whether it's through social events, team-building exercises, or embedding core values of teamwork into the very fabric of your church, this episode is brimming with insights to help every staff member feel like an indispensable part of a cohesive whole. So, tune in, as we guide you through creating a more supportive and connected church workplace, where everyone on your team can thrive.

Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Welcome to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, where we tackle what makes a great place to serve. Today, we're going to talk about teamwork. My name is Todd Rhodes, I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and I'm your host right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Okay, today we're going to talk about does your staff feel like they're on the same team or are they just folks who clock in together? We started to talk about this topic yesterday on the podcast. If you missed that one, go back and listen to it. But here's what we found from our survey of about 1,000 church staff people that responded last year and we found that 66% of church staff surveyed felt a strong sense of teamwork. Now, that's good news, good news, but there's still about a third of your staff if your church is normative who don't feel that way. So let's dive in. Let's unpack those numbers. About 66% feel that a positive sense of teamwork exists in their church, but about 15% disagree, and that's way too many people feeling isolated or unsupported. Plus, there's about 20% that are just on the fence. They're unsure about teamwork. So that's our key to improvement. So what are we going to do for the majority? Okay, maybe your church already does. Social events, team building exercises? Maybe it's just a part of your culture to help each other out. Whatever it is, keep doing it. Celebrate those wins, celebrate teamwork where you see it. Call it out and reward those folks who go the extra mile. Remind everyone how crucial working as a team and working hand-in-hand is to your mission.

Speaker 1: 1:55

Now for those 15% who feel left out of your focus. Why are they disconnected? It could mean that more team activities, maybe some better communication within your teams, maybe just having a little bit more collaborative projects can fix this. But, leaders, it's really important to find out the specific problem and then you can address it effectively. Effectively. Just sticking your head in the sand is not an option here. If you have people that aren't team players, or people that you sense you just you sense that they don't feel connected, that there's not a lot of camaraderie or they don't feel like they're a part, a real, integral part of the team. If you sense that there's people like that, you need to start having some conversations and try to get them involved in the process, to get them connected with a team or get them collaborating with other people on the team. It's going to make a huge difference, not only in their happiness, but how long they stay and minister at your church. Okay, so let's talk.

Speaker 1: 2:56

Move on just briefly to about the 20% that are neutral. Now, when we asked the question or when we gave the statement, we said do you disagree, strongly disagree? Do you agree, strongly agree, or are you neutral? And about 20% of those thousand people said that they were neutral. Maybe they're new, maybe they work in a more isolated role, a specialized role, or maybe they're just unsure how much support they can really count on. But as a leader, as a church, you need to get them connected. Give them chances to interact with other teams, maybe outside of work, share successes where teamwork's made a difference and ask them directly, as I said, have those conversations.

Speaker 1: 3:39

Once you identify them, what would make your work environment feel a little bit more team-focused? How can we get you more involved? So, bottom line, even with a majority of response, we would all want 100%. Everyone feels supported and we would want it for everyone, even 100% of people, to feel supported in our church workplace. But workshops on communication, maybe having teams of different people from different departments mix it up a little bit, maybe adding some of those core values of teamwork to your church. Those things are really going to make a difference. But you have to have a plan, a systematic plan for teamwork so that you can regularly evaluate how you're doing.

Speaker 1: 4:22

Are you moving the needle? How supportive is your culture? How does it feel? How are we doing at pairing up experienced and experienced staff people with new staff people to build those bonds and to build those friendships and relationships and to foster that teamwork? Can we do it informally? Do we need to do it maybe a little bit more formally so that in the future, after those introductions can be made, it can be a little bit more organic as they build trust and make space? Really, think about it. What do you have to do to have a team that just clicks? Everyone needs to support each other, the communication has to be great and they have to feel like they're hitting their goals, like their work is making a difference. That's really what we want for all of our church staff, and positive trends, as you're tracking them, will show that you're on track. But there's never it's not something that you can just flip a switch and say okay, yeah, we have a great teamwork here. Everybody's on the team. You can always do better, and you can do better by investing in your people, by celebrating wins and teamwork every chance you get and remember a connected team is a successful team. That's really important to remember. Hats off to you and your church as you continue down this road of collaboration and teamwork. It will really make a difference.

Speaker 1: 5:44

Hey, if you have not taken the 2024 Church Staff Health Assessment, we look at issues like teamwork and see how you are doing and how you're feeling about your church and your role and your role on the church staff. If you've not taken the assessment this year, I would encourage you to do. You can just head over to churchstaffassessmentcom. It's an absolutely free survey that you can take anytime. It's only going to be open for another, I believe, week and a half or so. So make sure, if you can do that today, even right now, that would be great. Just over at churchstaffassessmentcom and then early in the summer we're going to take all of the responses that we get. We're going to put them all together and deliver for you an absolutely free report on how church staffs across America are doing in seven key areas of church staff health. That's going to be a really interesting report. We're already getting had a few hundred people take the assessment already looking for a few hundred more.

Speaker 1: 6:41

So that would be great if you could go over to churchstaffassessmentcom and if you have any questions for me, any maybe topic ideas for a future edition of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, I would love to hear from you. You can email me anytime at healthy. I'm sorry, that's the wrong email address. You can email me anytime at podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. If there's any way that I or someone on my team here at Chemistry Staffing can come alongside your church or help you with a new staff member search, we would love to be able to do that. You can just reach out to me anytime. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom, and I hope you'll join us again here tomorrow for another edition of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Have a great day.